Native client for cloud service Box available for Windows Phone

The team at Box, a cloud-based storage and sharing service, have published a blog article detailing the release of their Windows Phone app, which has been published since June. The app joins their catalogue of mobile apps for iOS, BlackBerry and Android.

The Windows Phone app is a native client so you're getting all the goodies offered from Box. So what's the service all about? Box enables users to upload, store and share files from computers to the cloud. Much like DropBox, SkyDrive and similar services, Box provides a limited amount of space (5GB) for free.

Box offers a number of useful features to help make sharing files easier - from sending links and sharing entire folders to receiving real-time updates on views, comments and edits. As well as sharing, there's added support for extensive collaboration between a number personnel. Contacts can be invited to work with the user within folders, and are subsequently able to leave comments and share links to content right from the web or mobile app.

As mentioned above, the Windows Phone app packs all available mobile client functionality and then some. Search is integrated enabling users to locate files and folders in a matter of seconds from the app, and file management is a breeze with multiple functions available. Deleting, moving and renaming folders or files can even be achieved in bulk. Lastly, app-specific passcodes can be applied for an extra layer of protection.

But if that wasn't enough, the team have designed the Windows Phone Box app to take advantage of Metro and the platform capabilities. Pivots are used and Live Tiles are supported for more convenient access which also update when collaboration takes place from contacts.

As well as releasing the free Windows Phone app, the team have also started working with Qualcomm to pre-load Box on select Android and Windows devices. This will bring extra storage for consumers on said devices at no extra cost. Though with Microsoft actively improving SkyDrive, with Office 2013 on the way, it might be worth holding out to see how Windows 8, Apollo and Office changes the game.

You can download Box from the Marketplace (note: may not be available in some regions).

I got mine from using the android app on my galaxy tab. It was some sort of promotion that upgraded me to 50Gb, but I hardly use it (I only use a few kB), because you have to manually upload stuff to it. I mainly use skydrive and dropbox because they have Windows applications that sync a local folder to the cloud.

This new app is great! I've been using BoxFiles for Box until now. And now that SkyDrive syncs everything to all PCs, I've been using Box.net to hold my files in the cloud that I don't want to sync. Thought I'd never use that 50GB that came with the Touchpad. Now I've already filled 25GB on Box + 22GB on SkyDrive.

One thing to note Rich, I read elsewhere, is that apparently the box app bundled WPs will come with 50 GB of storage. While I'm content with my 25 GB of SkyDrive, its something to look forward to for those that use box.